BMI CEO PAINTS PICTURE OF FULL INTEGRATION AS FEEDER AIRLINE FOR LUFTHANSA

By Dino D'Amore
January 24, 2011 14:52

Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, bmi’s chief executive, has confirmed that the board has drawn up a strategy which would see bmi operating as a feeder airline to parent company, Lufthansa, in continental Europe.

Bmi would then use the slots freed at Heathrow for more profitable routes to the Middle East and Africa. bmi – which is being re-branded as British Midland International – would still retain a presence in the UK, serving Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Belfast.

But the airline is also coming to blows with BAA over the state of play at Heathrow, publicly trading blows in the press over the decision to overhaul charges levied on airlines at Heathrow, which would see the fee for each domestic passenger increasing from £13 to £23. The airline is planning to challenge the sharp rises in the courts, arguing that the increases violate industry agreements that prices should only go up gradually.

At the same time the airline is angry that the landing charges for the giant airbus A380 are lower than those imposed on narrow-bodied aircraft such as the A319 and Boeing 737. “An A380 requires much more capacity of runway because it requires a higher degree of separation than a narrow bodied aircraft and therefore takes away capacity and in effect has two slots,” said Wolfgang Prock-Schauer. “Heathrow had invested a substantial amount of money to upgrade the airport to cope with the world’s largest commercial aircraft, but was recovering it from other operators.”

The point is that new larger aircraft are by definition greener and also provide more passenger revenue across the airport so in effect the BAA fee structure does indeed work out to be fair.